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Off-shore detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island were set up in cooperation with the Nauru and Papua New Guinea governments. These detention centres are remote and lack public scrutiny.

The Australian government is taking advantage of some of the hostile public reactions towards asylum seekers to control the refugees’ entry into the country.

The Australian government has not taken any action to educate the general public about the asylum seeker issue that helps them accept the refugees into the society.

Politicians determined that the general public was hostile to asylum seekers but did not seek to change their attitudes, and implemented asylum seeker policies that prevented refugee entry, said Monash University politics lecturer, Waleed Aly. “There has been a… deliberate avoidance of educating the Australian public on the issue.”

Shadow Finance Minister, Andrew Robb, said that off-shore detention centres like Nauru Island will deter people smugglers from sending asylum seekers to Australia.

Refugee advocates do not support off-shore processing policies.

The public does not have access into off-shore detention centres, and this lack of public scrutiny led to the abuse of human rights on Nauru Island a few years ago, said Asylum Seeker Resource Centre Campaign Coordinator, Pamela Curr.

Refugee advocates also think that mandatory detention for asylum seekers should be stopped.

“This is an absolute disgrace in this nation. There are no other Western nations that have a system where by law, a person entering Australia and seeking asylum who doesn’t have a visa must be locked up indefinitely,” said Curr.